ROAD TO RUIN | 

CAB gets order to sell off Drogheda feud brothers’ ‘uninhabitable’ houses

The crime-fighting agency was granted an order to sell the properties ‘privately or by public treaty.’

Yesterday at 16:17

PROPERTIES belonging to mob boss Owen Maguire and his brother Brendan have been described as “uninhabitable ruins.”

A senior officer said in an affidavit the properties in Monaghan and Cavan were unoccupied and uninhabitable.

Counsel for CAB added both houses in question were in a state of disrepair and “indeed derelict.”

Judge Alex Owens, who said he was familiar with tone of the properties in Co Cavan, granted an application to allow a receiver to sell the homes.

They were deemed the proceeds of crime at a hearing last month to which neither of the Maguires had turned up.

The case was adjourned until this week to allow CAB to investigate if they were occupied before a receiver is cleared to put them up for sale.

Yesterday CAB was granted an order to sell the properties “privately or by public treaty.”

Judge Owens found in favour of CAB last month who wanted two properties, two vehicles, a Rolex watch and €305,000 in cash declared the proceeds of crime.

A receiver has already been given the power to sell off the A Class Mercedes Benz, a Ford Transit and the watch worth €16,500.

In making the order Judge Owens said they had very little in regular income over a long period of time and the sworn affidavits by gardai were ‘well-founded’.

“The overall situation points very strongly to the proceeds of crime.”

He said there was nothing in the documents provided to the court to show they could have generated the cash through scrap and car dealing.

He added that the way in which €270,000 was found in a concealed – hidden and wrapped in bundles – was consistent with the proceeds of crime.

Attempts to cover cash transactions by taking out loans were undermined by the “blatantly false documents” used to acquire the money and were paid with criminal cash.

Owen Maguire has been confined to a wheelchair since he was shot outside his home by the slain mobster Robbie Lawlor in 2018.

His brother Brendan, who also survived being shot as part of a lethal feud, was served his legal papers at his new home in the UK.

Owen Maguire is regarded as the joint head of the Price-Maguire Organised Criminal Gang and which has been involved in a lethal gangland feud in Drogheda since 2018.

He is described in the CAB papers as “a major scale drug dealer” supplying drugs in much of the country’s north-east area who survived being shot six times in a murder bid at his home.

In one of the CAB affidavits to the High Court it is also stated that “Cornelius Price is an extremely close associate of Owen Maguire and they jointly head the Price-Maguire OCG.”